An increasing number of Americans, taking the glass-is-half-empty approach, believe the economy has gone through a permanent change for the worse since the Great Recession, a survey found. Six in 10 Americans now think that the economy has changed irrevocably, up from 56% in 2010 who thought so, according to a survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed say the economy will never fully recover, while more than half think it will take at least six years, if not more, for the county to copletely shake off the damage from the Great recession.

California's small-business owners worry about the economy, regulatory burdens and taxes, but they're also concerned about the deteriorating quality of public education and crumbling roads and other public works. Those are the findings of an annual survey of 1,067 small-business executives just released by Small Business California, an advocacy group. Employers -- just over half of them with 19 workers or less -- have trouble finding capable staff and then have trouble navigating clogged freeways, said Scott Hauge, a San Francisco insurance broker who is Small Business California's founder and president.

Ninety percent of Americans said schools should take a role in combating obesity -- a surprising cut away from the idea that being overweight is a personal choice. That doesn't meant people don't see that they need to take action as well for themselves and their families, according to the results of a Field Research poll released Wednesday. “It really indicates a sea change in how people view the problem,” Loel Solomon, vice president for community health at Kaiser Permanente, said in an interview.

Improving economic data haven't put many Americans in the yuletide spirit, with nearly four in 10 saying they will spend less this holiday season than they did last year, according to survey results released Monday. Just 14% of consumers in the Bankrate.com survey said they planned to increase their holiday spending. Nearly half -- 47% -- said they planned to spend the same amount. But 38% of the respondents in the Dec. 5-8 survey said they would spend less this year on gifts and other purchases.

Further evidence has emerged that Hollywood has made little progress in hiring women and minorities to work on prime-time television shows. A survey conducted by the Directors Guild of America of more than 2,600 television episodes from 170 scripted TV series for the 2010-11 season found that white males directed 77% of all episodes, and white females directed 11% of all episodes. Minority males directed 11% all episodes and minority females directed just 1% of the shows, according to the DGA survey.

Cable television has become the top source of news about the presidential campaign, while fewer Americans turn to their local TV stations and the networks, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. While public attention to cable news has remained steady over the last four presidential cycles, the attention to other television outlets and to newspapers for election information has declined. Perhaps most surprisingly, the Pew survey found that the percentage of those saying they use the Internet to access campaign news has stayed about the same as it was four years ago. The percentage of the audience who say they regularly get information on the 2012 race was 36% from cable news, 32% from local TV, 26% from network TV, 25% from the Internet and 20% from newspapers.

America's nonprofit theaters are feeling a bit better about their finances these days, according to a recent survey conducted by the sector's main national service organization, Theatre Communications Group. But the actors, directors and designers who work in those theaters shouldn't bank on a trickle-down effect boosting their standard of living. Asked to list their top five priorities for the coming year, only 19% of the 206 theaters surveyed by TCG and its partner, the Assn.

September 5, 2013 | By Matt Pearce, This post has been corrected, as indicated below

Well, that's one way to get into an Ivy League school. According to an email survey of more than 1,300 incoming Harvard students, the Harvard Crimson reports , 10% of the campus' new freshman class have cheated on tests and 42% have cheated on homework. That's probably going to be unwelcome news for the 377-year-old university, which is still recovering from a 2012 scandal in which more than 100 students were accused of cheating on a take-home exam for an introductory-level class on Congress.

Online lender Quicken Loans sits atop J.D. Power & Associates' survey of mortgage customer satisfaction for a fourth straight year. Quicken rated 841 overall out of a possible 1,000, according to J.D. Power, a Westlake Village market researcher. The Detroit-based lender received top ratings in all categories: the application and approval process, interactions with loan representatives, the closing experience, and level and quality of contact. BB&T Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., ranked second at 798 with high scores in all categories.

A survey released this week found that there were more teens and young adults who said they use Tumblr on a regular basis than those who said they use Facebook. Fifty-nine percent of respondents between the ages of 13 and 25 said they use Tumblr regularly; 54% said they use Facebook on a regular basis. Among those 13 to 18, the percentage who said they use Tumblr regularly was even higher -- 61% compared with 55% who said they use Facebook regularly. The survey was conducted by Y Combinator start-up Survata.